


east to south, north to west

by pigeonchest



Series: not supposed to come home [2]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, POV Multiple
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-26
Updated: 2020-06-08
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:55:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24394621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pigeonchest/pseuds/pigeonchest
Summary: Toph Beifong makes a strong first impression.(Scenes from a pre series/Book 1 AU in which Iroh adopts Toph.)
Relationships: Toph Beifong & Zuko
Series: not supposed to come home [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1753861
Comments: 69
Kudos: 397





	1. i. zuko

**Author's Note:**

> i like to write drabbles and call them """scenes""" because i'm a pretentious dummy who took two creative writing classes. pls enjoy! 
> 
> title from emigre by alela diane.

i.

When Zuko is thirteen, he is betrothed to a nobleman’s daughter. He knew beforehand that something was going to happen around him or maybe to him, and afterwards he hears whispers about alliances and punishments. Zuko has never been good at piecing together the network of gossip and rumor that strings the palace together, always one step behind. 

Zuko tries not to resent her already, because he knows arranged marriages can be happy. He knows how to do his duty. But the more he learns about her, the harder it is not to be shamed. She’s from the Earth Kingdom. She’s not royalty or even colonial, just the daughter of rich war profiteers from the dead center of the continent. She’s an earthbender and a weak one at that, apparently. It’s only later that he finds out she’s blind, and then he finally understands exactly how humiliated he’s supposed to be.

Gradually he comes to see that it’s a punishment for everyone involved. He pieces it together slowly like he pieces everything together slowly: he is engaged because he is weak, and a weak heir deserves an equally weak bride. The Beifongs’ efforts to play both sides have failed, and for that they lose their precious daughter. Also their house and their fortune and their lives, though he doesn’t find that out until later.

The girl arrives in the Caldera in early spring, and for once Zuko isn’t the only one caught out. Zuko doesn’t see her until the official betrothal ceremony, which is traditional. He started wandering around the rarely-used diplomatic wing of the palace, where the girl and her retinue are staying, but he couldn’t even catch a glimpse. So he gets his first look at his future wife in the throne room, kneeling between Uncle and Azula with his father’s curtain of flames at his back. His betrothed is tiny, just a little kid drowning in pale green silk and clutching the arm of a nervous maidservant. At first Zuko thinks the woman must be her mother, but she’s too young and her clothes are too plain. On his right, Uncle seems worried. To his left, Azula is grinning.

Zuko’s bride is named Toph Beifong, and she doesn’t speak. For the entire ceremony, she stands quietly with her head down and her cloudy eyes unfocused next to her shaking servant. Lady Beifong herself doesn’t shake, standing steady even in front of the full majesty and power of the Fire Lord’s throne. Though Zuko supposes that maybe the majesty doesn’t work if you can’t see it. The last betrothal ceremony he saw was Lu Ten’s, forever and ever ago, and he doesn’t remember how they’re supposed to go. His etiquette tutor will be angry. He thought, however, that he might have a chance to talk to his betrothed. Instead he just tries to look solemn while some old sage recites both their bloodlines.

“Poor thing,” Azula coos under her breath. “Just look at her.”

“Shut up, Azula,” Zuko hisses.

“You’ll make such a cute couple,” she says. Across the room, his betrothed shifts her weight.

+

Iroh’s tea table has elaborately carved legs, dragons in flight weaving between unfurling lotus blossoms. When Zuko was little he used to hide things in the dragons’ open mouths—flaky chunks of plum pastry, which he despised, or leaves torn off the bushes in the courtyard. Now his hands are too big for such delicate work. He runs a nervous finger over a set of carved teeth anyway, and the familiarity of the wood grain is comforting. 

“You must be kind to her, Nephew.” 

Zuko doesn’t respond, and he doesn’t look up at his Uncle either. He knows from experience what Iroh’s face will look like, the particular kind of sincerity he can expect to find there.

“You are lucky,” Uncle says, “to be acquainted with her so young. You will have many years to become comfortable together before you marry.”

“I don’t want to get used to her,” Zuko blurts. “I want her to go away.”

Uncle hums. “Then imagine how she must feel about you, Prince Zuko.” He’s being scolded now. Zuko feels himself blush. He wishes he didn’t go so red. It’s another weakness he can’t afford.

Uncle sighs and pours himself another cup of tea. Zuko hasn’t touched his own. “Many young ladies of her background are very sheltered. The Fire Lord’s court might be unlike anything Lady Beifong has experienced before.”

“She won’t even talk to me,” Zuko says. He doesn’t know how he’s supposed to get to know his future wife if they haven’t even spoken, no matter how sheltered she is.

“Patience is a virtue.” Uncle’s rooms look out onto one of the family courtyards, and he has the windows open for the breeze. Zuko scowls down at the pond. “As is understanding.”

+

When Zuko wakes up from a tangle of strange, hazy dreams, he doesn’t remember at first where he is. His bed is less comfortable than it should be, and the room smaller and grayer, and there’s a strange mechanical hum in the background. His face hurts. Lady Beifong is curled up on a cushion in the corner under a red cloak that looks too big for her. She’s very small.

“Am I dead?” Zuko asks, because he didn’t think the spirit world would be hot and loud and colorless like this, but what does he know about spirits? Maybe he’s being punished. Maybe dishonor carries over.

“No,” says Lady Beifong. “Duh.”

“Oh,” says Zuko. “Sorry.”

“Why would I be here if you were dead?” Her voice is high and brash, louder than Zuko thought it would be, and her accent is strange. This is the first time he's heard her speak.

“I don’t know,” he says. The room is moving around him. It’s so loud. His face hurts. 

“Can you see?”

He tries to squint, but it makes his face hurt worse. He didn’t know that was possible. “Kinda.” 

“Huh. They weren’t sure if you’d be able to.”

“Who’s _they_?” Zuko leans up, peeling his achy body off the mattress. His arms shake under him. That’s no good. He’s already so far behind in his training. He’s hungry and thirsty and nauseous all at the same time.

“They, as in Uncle Iroh and the doctor. They also said you shouldn’t move around so much,” Lady Beifong says. 

Zuko doesn’t listen, sitting bolt upright. “Why are you calling him Uncle? You have no right!” 

“He said I could call him that,” she snaps. “And _Uncle_ also said I had to watch you, and if you hurt yourself trying to yell at me about manners I’ll be in trouble.”

Zuko shuts up. Lady Beifong huffs. She isn’t wearing any shoes, Zuko realizes, and that one extra strangeness on top of all the other horrible and confusing things that have happened and continue to happen is enough to start a hateful little pull in the back of Zuko’s throat. Crying is shameful. He should know better. It’s probably not good for what’s left of his face.

“Why are you here?” Zuko says. His voice is getting thick, but even if Lady Beifong can hear it, at least she won’t be able to see tears. “What’s going on?”

“I don’t _know_ what’s going on. Uncle just said I would be safe here, so here I am. Here as in not your stupid palace, and here as in this boat. Before you ask another dumb question.”

“Lady Beifong—”

She laughs out loud. “Nobody calls me that.”

“Um. Toph?”

“Better. Now lie back down. Uncle said.”

He lies back down. His head hurts less with his eyes closed, but the dizziness is worse. He can’t hear anything out of his bandaged ear. 

“Do we still have to get married?” Zuko asks.

“I hope not,” Toph says. “So there’s a silver lining, huh.”

Zuko snorts, which hurts less than trying to squint but more than sitting up.

“I mean, no offense or whatever. But I didn’t want to be a lady anyway,” she says.

Zuko’s eyes are heavy—his eye—is his other eye even still there? He would ask Toph to check but she wouldn’t be able to tell. The room seems far away, sinking by the second. He thinks someone might open the door, but he’s very tired, and if the door is open maybe Uncle is here, and maybe he can rest.


	2. ii. jiro

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im back with a little outsider POV (kinda? mostly?) anyway pls enjoy.
> 
> warning for brief discussion of child sexual abuse.

ii. 

Jiro has had a bunch of weird fucking postings. He’s got no pedigree to guarantee him cozy spots in colonial ports, just a fisherman for a father and a maternal aunt who slept with a local governor long enough to get him into the Navy rather than on the front lines. The Wani, however, is his weirdest posting yet. Even when Jiro was cleaning latrines on a troop ship, his commander wasn’t a snappy little croco-dog of a thirteen-year-old. The Dragon of the West was not there. Also, there were no little girls on the troop ship.

The little girl is the thing that really rubs Jiro the wrong way. First off, a Navy ship is no place for a kid. At least the Prince has Imperial firebender training, even without the kind of raw power you hear about coming from that line. The kid, though, Miss Toph—Lady Toph? Princess? nobody can figure out her title, and the general isn’t talking—she’s not a firebender at all. She’s also blind, perpetually a little bit dirty, and sort of strange.

At first, she follows the general around like a little green shadow (green at first, in her crumpled silk dress, and then red like the rest of them once somebody finds a tunic that won’t swallow her whole). But it’s not long before she starts making her own way, showing up in places around the ship where she probably shouldn’t be. Jiro’s trying to look busy on the second deck when she ambushes him for the first time.

His first warning is the noise. Nobody walks quietly in armor or in the echoey metal hallways of a Navy cruiser, but this is a new kind of ruckus. The combination of stomping and grumbling and knocking on the walls is impressively loud. Jiro turns around to see who got drunk on duty this early in the voyage. Also this early in the day. Not that Jiro doesn’t understand the impulse, given that he himself recently got chewed out by a heavily medicated teenage prince for disrespecting the uniform by slouching on duty. The kid was out of his head on whatever royal-grade tonic wine they were giving him for his face and could barely keep himself standing, but that’s beside the point. Anyway, it’s not a drunk colleague stumbling down the hall towards Jiro but little Lady Toph, mysteriously barefoot, with both hands on the wall and a ferociously determined scowl on her face.

She clatters up to him and stops a couple hand-lengths away. She barely comes up to his elbow, even with all her dark hair piled up on top of her head. Jiro is distinctly reminded of an old spirit tale his grandma used to tell him about children who disobeyed their parents and had to go run wild in the forest for eternity.

“Hello,” Jiro says. “Where’re your shoes?”

The girl directs an unfocused but absolutely scathing look at the middle of his breastplate. “They’re in Uncle’s cabin,” she says, like that should be obvious.

“Uh, maybe you should be wearing ‘em down here. You might step on something sharp. Or wet. Or dirty.” Jiro has never once considered going barefoot on board a ship. The sheer volume of nasty, painful shit it’s possible to step on doesn’t bear thinking about.

“Uncle said I could,” she says, and it’s definitely not Jiro’s place to bring up matters of shipboard safety with either the Dragon of the fucking West or the mysterious child who calls him Uncle. Maybe this is normal behavior for a girl her age.

“How old are you?” Jiro asks.

“Almost ten,” she says. He doesn’t know why he thought that would be helpful. “How old are _you_?”

“Twenty seven?” Jiro says, which feels like the wrong answer. He is twenty seven, though.

Jiro doesn’t know shit about kids. He’s the baby of the family, and he’s been away from home long enough that he’s never even met any of his sisters’ offspring. Fumi’s oldest is probably about Toph’s age by now, actually, though she doesn’t know her Uncle Jiro. No great loss, in his opinion, because Fumi makes the kid seem like a brat and a half in her letters.

“Are you lost?” he asks.

“I don’t think so,” she says. She tilts her head strangely. “Where am I?”

“Outside of crew quarters, on the second deck. Not too far from the galley.”

“Cool. Not lost. Thanks.”

“Of course, Lady Toph,” Jiro says. He thinks about bowing, but he doesn’t actually want to and the kid won’t notice if he doesn’t. She sidesteps him and goes on her noisy way down the hall. Jiro files the story away to tell in the mess later.

+

Jiro’s not too familiar with royals, but he knows officers. He knows bad officers especially. It’s probably treasonous to say, but he figures a relative of the Fire Lord is basically just the most jumped-up, power hungry officer times ten. That kind of thinking is probably how he’s gotten nearly a decade into a naval career without even hearing a whisper of promotion. It’s also why he’s initially more than a little suspicious about Lady Toph’s presence on the ship. 

“Who the fuck even is she?” he hisses to Yao over their bowls at dinner. None of the royals ever eat in the mess with the plebes, so there’s not really a need for caution, but better safe than sorry this close to any members of Sozin’s line.

“I heard she’s Iroh’s bastard,” Yao says. “And she’s here because she’s a threat to the succession.”

“Somebody told me she’s a concubine for the Prince,” says Ko, butting in. 

Yao scoffs. “Sure. How old is he, twelve?” General Iroh is also a prince, is what Jiro’s thinking.

“Who knows the kind of shit they get up to in the Caldera,” Jiro says darkly.

“She’s a funny kid,” Jian says, eavesdropping as always. “Got ears like a wolf-bat, and she’s quick.”

“Maybe she’s a spy, then,” says Ko. “Keeping an eye on things for the Fire Lord.”

“Yeah, idiot, she’s a fucking blind spy,” says Jian.

Jiro finishes his soup and stands. “I’m on watch tonight, boys. Let me know if you solve the mystery.”

As far as Jiro can tell, the Prince’s Avatar-hunting strategy thus far is to wander aimlessly up and down the coast of the Earth Kingdom. Jiro has absolutely no stake in their route as long as they don’t get too close to the poles. He isn’t built for cold weather, but as long as he’s not freezing his ass off on night watches, he’s fine. Tonight, Jiro is not fine. He rubs his hands together, wishing he was a bender, and looks over his shoulder to see the general appear out of the darkness right behind him. 

“Evening, sir,” Jiro says with a bow once his heart rate has returned to normal. General Iroh’s real sneaky for his size.

“It is such a lovely evening, Ensign Jiro. I hope you are well,” says General Iroh, who can, according to rumor, breathe fire. Jiro straightens up just a little bit.

“Very well, sir,” Jiro says. The general plays the kindly old uncle for the kids’ benefit, but Jiro’s heard enough about the Siege of Ba Sing Se not to trust it. Once a dragon, always a dragon. Also, the dragon knows his name. That’s a bad sign.

“I was hoping I could take a moment of your time,” Iroh says. Jiro is going to die. He hopes the general leaves enough ashes behind to send to his father.

“I will not pretend that the circumstances on this ship are not...unorthodox.”

“Yes sir,” Jiro says, diplomatic.

“But I hope to shed some light on the presence of our guest. You are an honorable young man,” says General Iroh, who must not have seen Jiro’s service record, “and your crewmates trust you.”

“Young Toph is my ward. She has no official position in the royal lineage, but she is under my care.” Point in favor of Yao’s illegitimate daughter theory. Jiro nods.

“Before my nephew was banished, he and Toph were to be married. Several years from now, you understand.” Not _too_ far off from Ko’s idea. “Obviously the engagement was broken, and normally that would be that. But Toph’s situation is...unique. I will trust your discretion in this matter,” Iroh says. There’s no discretion on a ship, which the general knows as well as Jiro does.

“Naturally, sir,” Jiro says.

The general clears his throat. “Toph is not--fully of Fire Nation blood, and her bending skills reflect her heritage. My brother’s court was not safe for an unaccompanied child in her position.” Shit, the kid’s an earthbender. An earthbender born not too long before the Siege of Ba Sing Se. Maybe Yao and Ko were both right.

“I would like to ensure that this ship _is_ safe for her. I am asking you to use the information you have been given to assist me in that goal.” All the friendly old man is gone from the general’s voice now. “As a personal favor to myself.”

Jiro bows low. “Of course sir. It would be an honor.” The Fire Lord’s brother identified Jiro as a gossip-monger and just handed him a gold-embossed invitation to spread his family’s business among the crew. Jiro can’t feel his hands. 

The General nods and ambles off into the night. Jiro’s pretty sure nobody had money on the kid being Prince Zuko’s earthbending bride _or_ Iroh’s half-blooded byblow. He’s about to be the most popular man on this ship.

+

A couple days later, after Jiro rigs several bets, he’s moving a load of spare spearheads out of the armory when he spots Lady Toph on the floor of the komodo-rhino hold, covered head to toe in coal dust, working her way through what looks like a month’s supply of dried fruit rations.

“Okay, no fucking way you’re supposed to be doing that,” he says.

Her head snaps up. “Uncle said I could.” Jiro throws his hands up—figuratively, because he’s holding a very heavy crate—and opts to send it up the totem pole. Now that the general thinks he’s honorable, and all.

Turns out the kid was using ‘Uncle said I could’ to mean ‘Uncle never said I couldn’t, because I never asked,’ and trusting that everybody was too scared of upsetting the general to double-check. She’s a canny little monster. Jiro approves.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me when i started writing this: jiro is a convenient plot device  
> me when i finished editing: i am legally married to jiro


	3. iii. katara

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is late! this chapter gave me so much trouble! 'i can write an action scene,' i thought, 'it will be fun,' i thought.  
> anyway pls enjoy.

iii. 

When Aang says he saw a kid on the Fire Navy ship that captured him, Katara absolutely does not believe him. 

“I swear,” Aang says, waving his arms wildly from his perch on Appa’s head. “She was probably my height, wearing all red like everybody else on the ship! I bet she lives there!”

“That’s nice, Aang,” Katara says.

“I know she was real because I accidentally knocked her over in the hallway when I was escaping!”

“Good for you,” Sokka says. “Show the Fire Nation no mercy.”

“You guys aren’t even listening,” says Aang, slumping into a sulk that’s already too familiar to Katara. 

“I am too listening,” says Katara, who mostly isn’t. 

“I wonder if we’ll see those guys again,” Aang muses. “I wonder if she’s nice.”

Later, Katara will pinpoint that as the moment where Aang totally jinxed them.

+

Katara mostly forgets about Aang’s Fire Navy imaginary friend. He probably just saw a shorter-than-average soldier or knocked over a pile of robes in a hallway and got excited. The Prince and his ship, however, are much harder to ignore. Especially when he’s tying her to a tree, taking her waterbending scroll, and saying weird, threatening stuff about Aang. There’s pirates lined up on one side of her and half the Fire Navy on the other, and the sheer size of the mistake Katara made tonight starts to sink in.

Katara’s eyes flit between the pirates, the prince, and the river. The rope is tight around her torso, and she’s pinned to the tree at just the right angle to see a girl emerge from the woods just downriver. She doesn’t have any armor or shoes, but she’s wearing what looks like a smaller version of a Fire Navy uniform. Her hair hangs in her face and her hands are dirty, and for a second Katara thinks she must be a hungry ghost. Only for a second, though, because the ghost-girl marches right up to the line of Fire Navy soldiers and says, cheerfully, “Hi Uncle, Hi Prince Zuko. How’s it going?”

Since she left the South Pole, Katara’s been in a lot of generally very confusing situations. Aang seems to attract weirdness, which Katara assumes is just part of being the Avatar. But this is new.

“What are you doing here? Why did you leave the ship?” Zuko hisses, getting right in the girl’s face. Katara tenses, though there’s nothing she can do to intervene when she’s tied to a tree. The girl, however, doesn’t even flinch.

“I was bored,” she says, crossing her arms. “You and Uncle never let me do anything these days.”

“How did you even _get_ here?” Zuko asks. The old man, with his hands folded up in his sleeves, looks intrigued.

“I walked,” the girl says, nonchalant. It’s the middle of the night, and they’re who knows how many miles from the nearest port deep enough for Zuko’s ship. She picks some dirt out from under her nails. Zuko growls. In Katara’s experience, it isn’t very hard to fluster Prince Zuko. However, she’s never seen him turn this particular color.

“You can’t _be_ here right now,” Zuko says through his teeth. “You’re a hindrance to my mission.” One of the armored-up guys behind him, holding a pike that makes Sokka’s old bone spear look like a fun twig, rolls his eyes. The rest of the soldiers don’t react at all, like this argument is nothing new to them.

“I’m a _what_?” the girl yells. She’s loud. This argument feels strangely familiar to Katara.

“You heard me,” Zuko says. “It’s not safe for you here. You’ll just get underfoot!” 

“Underfoot, huh?” the girl mutters. She spits on the ground, takes a stance Katara doesn’t recognize, all rigid spine and tense angles, and stomps so hard that Katara’s tree shakes. The ground under Zuko’s feet shifts, and he goes flying like somebody yanked a rug out from under him. For a second, Katara doesn’t believe what she’s seeing. There’s no way this Fire Nation kid, wearing all red, turning her back to a whole unit of armed Fire Nation soldiers, could be an earthbender.

“Hey!” says Zuko, from where he’s sprawled on the ground. The girl snorts.

Zuko gracelessly heaves himself back to his feet. “Ensign Ko,” he snaps, pointing at one of the armored men. “Escort Toph back to the ship at once. Don’t let her out of your sight.”

The girl—Toph—grins with all her teeth, and Ensign Ko blanches. “Yes sir,” Ko says. It’s strange to know one of their names. Katara doesn’t like it.

Ko gingerly grabs Toph’s shoulder and turns back downriver. “Smell ya later, Prince Zuko,” she says.

“Lady Toph, please,” the old man says.

“When I get back to the ship I’m gonna make Uncle lock you in your room for so long you forget what the sky looks like,” Zuko shouts at her back. The girl responds with a gesture that Katara doesn’t recognize, but based on Zuko’s response it must be pretty rude.

“Nephew,” says the old man.

“I’ve never seen the sky anyway!” Toph shouts through the trees. “Nice try!” This response doesn’t clarify anything for Katara, though the eye-rolling pikesman is visibly suppressing a laugh. 

“Any more little girls you want to threaten? Or did you forget our deal,” says the pirate in the biggest hat.

“Of course,” Zuko says. “Our deal.” And then he starts a fire under the scroll, and everything goes even more wrong.

+

“Guys, I think Zuko has a _sister_ ,” Katara says later, when they’re back on Appa heading north.

“What?” Sokka yelps. “There’s two of them?”

“Or a cousin, maybe? She called the old man Uncle,” Katara says.

Sokka wilts miserably onto Appa’s saddle. “How many stupid relatives can the Firelord have?”

“I told you,” says Aang. “I said there was another kid on that ship.”

“Yeah, but you just said _kid_. You didn’t say _sister_ ,” Sokka says, in his most obnoxious what-about-this-technicality voice.

“I was right,” Aang whispers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im pigeonchest on tumblr.

**Author's Note:**

> this is complete and should update every couple of days depending on whether or not i end up editing (probably won't! decided to post this while packing for a major move!)
> 
> i'm pigeonchest on tumblr, come say hey.


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